Suchergebnisse

We may not readily describe Duarte Agostinho as a success. But it does offer an excellent opportunity to clarify what we mean by 'success' in this context. Arguably, this depends on our expectations – whether that's to generate attention, trigger mobilization, seek judicial engagement with an issue, clarify the law, or pursue a given outcome, among others.

Yesterday, on 27 September 2023, a historic hearing took place before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. The Court heard the Duarte Agostinho case, brought by six Portuguese children and young people against a whopping 33 Member States of the Council of Europe. Having heard two other climate cases this past March (the KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland and Carême v. France cases, respectively), this was the Court's final hearing before it issues its first-ever findings on climate change. It was also the Court's first youth climate case. For several reasons, yesterday's hearing was a historic one: Duarte Agostinho is the Grand Chamber's biggest-yet climate case, both in terms of the substantive rights invoked and the number of States involved.

Who is a vulnerable person in human rights law? This important book assesses the treatment of vulnerability by the European Court of Human Rights, an area that has been surprisingly under explored by European human rights law to date. It explores legal-philosophical understandings of the topic, providing a theoretical framework that can be used when examining the question. Not confining itself to the abstract, however, it provides a bridge from the theoretical to the practical by undertaking a comprehensive examination of the Court's approach under art. 3 ECHR. It also pays particular attention to the concept of human dignity. Well written and compellingly argued, this is an important new book for all scholars of European human rights. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

AbstractAs the human right to a healthy environment is codified around the globe, some systems still lag behind. One noticeable straggler is the Council of Europe, which is currently undergoing its fourth attempt to recognize the right. This article examines the proposals tabled within this system in light of overarching debates about climate justice and environmental rights, before focusing specifically on the spatial and temporal limits of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the institutional features of its Court. First, the article describes what the author sees as the current liminal moment in the development of human rights law, a time of transition in which established legal concepts can be questioned or reaffirmed. Second, it sketches recent proposals for locating and conceptualizing the right to a healthy environment within the Council of Europe. Evaluating different options, it makes the case for including this right in the ECHR. Third, the article discusses the right's potential to reshape the spatial and temporal limitations on legal subjectivity and Convention protections. These proposals come at a crucial time when the system's ability to protect human rights from environment-related impacts is being tested by climate litigation. The article understands these developments as interrelated and discusses whether current proposals could deliver on demands for climate justice by extending protection to future generations and for extraterritorial environmental impacts.

Abstract
The present article engages with human rights law's purported 'theoretical crisis', according to which rights—and specifically those in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)—are bereft of a convincing theoretical foundation. In doing so, the article interrogates the use of crisis-oriented language, challenging the very idea of a 'theoretical crisis' of rights. Identifying the tension between judicial activism and judicial deference as the source of the crisis narrative, this piece engages with the theoretical foundations of ECHR rights, rejecting binary opposition between opposing moral and political accounts of these rights. It presents an alternative account by framing human rights as capable of combining convincing moral foundations with institutional and political realities. This means melding principle and dynamism, and using moral values to interrogate a human rights law that remains indivisible from its institutional backdrop. Under this account, both the Court's tools of deference, especially its European consensus doctrine, and the objection of rights inflationism must be subjected to scrutiny. This article straddles theory and practice to allow for a fresh perspective concerning the justification of rights, what is at stake, who bears the burden of restraint, and how current responses to backlash should be re-evaluated.

Abstract
Human rights law is increasingly being mobilized to litigate against the effects of anthropogenic climate change. This now includes proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights, which is currently considering its first five climate cases. The present article contends that an examination of climate change as a human rights issue by the Strasbourg Court, although requiring transformations of existing case law, is not only possible but also normatively desirable. It does so while examining two interlinked topics that could prove crucial to this type of case. The first is the assessment of risk – that is, the ability of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to capture impending harms through the doctrine of positive obligations. Second, the article frames climate claims as a matter for Article 3 of the ECHR (the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment). This right has gone largely ignored in the relevant scholarship and the Court's environmental cases to date. The resulting discussion of positive climatic obligations is interlinked with a discussion of climate-related vulnerabilities, which could potentially shape state obligations and lower the procedural and substantive hurdles that imperil the success of climate cases before the Court.

ABSTRACT
In 1948, Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) pioneered a right to (individual and collective) ownership of property. Today, the right to property—specifically the social function of property, which was a mainstay of the discussions—can be linked to the idea of a human right to land, which has been particularly prevalent in the discourse concerning the creation of human rights protections specific to peasants. The peasant rights process highlights a number of normative and implementation gaps in international human rights law, including relating to land use and tenure. The present contribution will argue that the claims made in this context are neither new nor niche but relate to universal human rights entitlements and have existed at least since the drafting of the UDHR. They are not only an iteration of an age-old class struggle but are at the forefront of a contemporary critique of the existing international legal system as a whole. While existing human rights, including the right to property, can be part of a response to these critiques, however, neither peasant rights nor the activists who promote them can be expected to resolve them alone.

On November 15, 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its judgment in Navalnyy v. Russia. The applicant in the case argued that the Russian authorities had targeted him for arrest and administrative sanctions because of his political activism. In its judgment, the Grand Chamber confirmed its recent change in approach to Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), including the normalization of the provision's scope and burden of proof. However, it displayed continued uncertainty about how to deal with measures based on a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate purposes.

In its case law on international child abduction, the European Court of Human Rights (ecthr) seeks to interpret the European Convention on Human Rights (echr) in conformity with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Both instruments safeguard the best interests of abducted children, but in different ways. This article explores the progress made by the ecthr in harmonising the conflict between the Hague Convention and Article 8 echr. While the ecthr's approach to the abducted child's best interests in Neulinger and Shuruk v. Switzerland was met with strong criticism, the Court seems to have found a viable approach in X. v. Latvia. The ecthr's current tactic allows it to continue its dialogue with national authorities and international bodies by imposing procedural requirements, thereby contributing to a harmonised approach appropriate to the best interests of abducted children without negatively impacting the functioning of the Hague Convention.

Fifty years after the UN General Assembly adopted the two human rights covenants, this volume brings together contributions considering the key issues facing the international human rights system today, taking stock of the achievements of the covenants, assessing their current influence, and exploring the future challenges facing them.